Watch: Stunning Teaser for No-CGI 4K Space Doc 'In Saturn's Rings'

This is real. All of it. I would file this under "Sci-Fi", but there's no Fiction, it's 100% pure Science! In 1997 NASA launched a spacecraft called the Cassini, packed with cameras and instruments (and an orbiter which they sent to Saturn's moon Titan in 2005) to collect data from space. It's mission: to photograph and study our solar system, our galaxy, and specifically Saturn and its rings a distant 750,000 miles away. A computer whiz designed a program to make video out of the photographs at 4K IMAX resolution, and here's our first 3-minute teaser trailer for In Saturn's Rings. I had no idea they were making this, but now I'm dying to see it. This is unbelievably breathtaking, completely real galactic beauty at its finest. Must watch this trailer.

Here's the official teaser trailer for Stephen van Vuuren's doc In Saturn's Rings, in high def on YouTube:

In Saturn's Rings, written & directed by Stephen van Vuuren (Still Life, Catastrophe), is a giant screen space film for IMAX, giant screen and fulldome theaters distributed by BIG & Digital, coming in the spring of 2014. The film is 100% created using only flat 2D photographs (often hundreds or thousands per frame) stitched together for massive hundred megapixel+ resolutions that are scaled and zoomed using techniques developed by the filmmaker, based on Ken Burns and 2.5D photo animation processes. A computer is not even required to do this - it could all be done exactly using photoanimation techniques from 100 years ago. No 3D models, texture mapping, CGI, camera projection, cloning or painting or any other VFX techniques are used - every pixel is what was captured in the photograph. For bookings, go here, for more see their site.

More like photes blended together, not of the imagery is actually generated by a computer effects engine, it's essentially taking photos and blending them together and making them appear as a moving image.

Private_Eyescream

Sweet. I want this on Blu-Ray now.
Then I can see "THE COLORFUL MOON" without the crappy NASA rip-off with their Greyscale photos.
YOUTUBE[ The Colorful Moon ] (moon photos saturation boosted 3X for better detail)
The blue areas are titanium, the reddish areas are iron oxides.

Private_Eyescream

A good video with excellent HQ imagery that can be saturation boosted (the moon is quite colorful, but it appears grey & brown without saturation boosting (by about 3X).
GOOGLE[ The Moon's True Colors Craig Lent ]
Though the moon is mostly colorless, there are slight variations in the colors of sunlight reflected by different regions because of differences in chemical composition. These small variations are digitally enhanced in the photograph on the right.
The white lunar highlands have minerals composed of silicon, calcium and aluminum. The lowlands were formed from massive impact basins. Cracks in the crust allowed lava to flow up and fill in the basins, creating the lunar maria (“seas”). The cooled lava basalts are often rich in titanium, which reflects more blue light, and iron, which reflects in the red.

Linkfx

you just copy and pasted this didn't you? There's no "photograph on the right"

Linkfx

wondering where exactly something like this might have a venue? Science Museums with IMAX? Or will it be like a one night only deal? Obviously it would be great if it were in all IMAX's but I have a hard time seeing that in this day and age

RL

Friggin awesome. Viewed at 2880x1800 on my macbook pro. Wow.

cobrazombie

Looks OK in 240p.

GimmeABreak

Uhh NO. This totally required CGI in order to have realistic convincing parallax and motion blur. You can totally tell pieces of a photograph have been cut off and offset to give a cheap illusion of depth and perspective. No thanks.

Pfft. Every one of those images was perpetrated through the use of a computer, the "C" of CGI. And all the multi plane animation done in After Effects? What about that? And the gigapixel stitching? Was that done with oil paint? I call B.S.
Medium snobbery at it's worst.